1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the calibration of communication channel parameters in systems, including mesochronous systems, in which two (or more) components communicate via an interconnection link; and to the calibration needed to account for drift of conditions related to such parameters during operation of the communication channels.
2. Description of Related Art
In high-speed communication channels, including channels which are operated in a mesochronous manner, a transmitter and receiver are each locked to a specific phase relative to some global reference clock. The phase values of the transmitter and receiver which minimize the bit-error-rate of the communication channel may be determined in a number of ways. However, once these phase values are set, offsets due to system conditions (such as temperature effects on the propagation time of the wires in the link) will cause the chosen phase values to become non-optimal. Other parameters of the communication channel also drift due to changing system conditions.
It is therefore desirable to provide techniques to detect and compensate for the drift in parameters of a communication channel due to changing system conditions like these.